Date   : Mon, 26 Jan 2004 11:06:39 +0000
From   : Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk@...>
Subject: Re: Domesday setup questions

> I'm afraid I can't offer any useful advice on the LVROM problems 
> except to say they are very temperamental.
> 
> We did get hold of some VP405s (earlier version without the 
> genloc and mixer) so we could swap parts with 415s, but we had no
>  luck with either the laser assembly or the power supply (even 
> though this was rated the same). 

Interesting. I did think construction looked like it evolved from
another player.

Do you sill have parts from those? I'm pointing an initial finger at the
video out board on the one unit at the moment, which I expect was common
with the earlier units. (You don't happen to know the function of the
DIP switches on the video out board do you?)

> Inceidentally, watch out for early 
> versions of the power supply that had the protection diode in the 
> wrong place (if something goes wrong, it protects part of the board 
> and blows another other part!).

Ha ha - nice! This unit I have at home at the moment has had quite a few
mods inside; extra components bodged on as an afterthought and a few
modified tracks.

Things are looking up anyway; I've just been promised a third LVROM unit
that was working when it was put into store. If it's still functioning
now, then given the two different faults on both these other units it
should be possible to get one working from the two even if custom chips
are involved. Plus it means we have a source of some other spares too
(although I know of a chap who's taking delivery of another Domesday
setup with a servo fault, so I might end up chucking parts his way
too...)

> 
> >  On the system that's currently running in the museum, the trackerball
> >plugs into a small module (branded "interfax 1986") which swaps some of
> >the pins around before it then plugs into the user port on the BBC. The
> >"new" system we got doesn't have this. Sound familiar to anyonw? Are we
> >missing one from the "new" setup, or shouldn't it be present on the old
> >one?
> 
> 
> Haven't seen this on the systems I've used. There are a number of strange 
> additions/modifications to Domesday systems... 

Aha, ta. I'll do a bit of ROM-swapping if needs be with the system that
has that little module until I can get it running without it. Half the
joints are cracked on the module, so there's no wonder there were
reports of the trackerball being a bit flakey!

> >Does anyone have a list of what titles were produced on the LV media? We
> >have about 6 different titles but it'd be nice to know what's out there.
> 
> Those that I'm aware of include:
> 
> BBC Domesday, Countryside, Ecodisc, Volcanoes
> 
> Please let me know what the other titles are!

I'll get a list of what the museum has at the weekend. I know we have
Domesday disks, some mapping thing or other, the disk about the
north/south pole (can't remember which it is!), and a marketing disk
from IBM about the PS/2. Then there are a couple of others, which I
can't remember details of at all.

I wonder what hardware was used to write the disks in the first place
and whether it survived...

cheers

Jules